Man draws state prison for drug, gun charges

NORRISTOWN » A Pottstown man is on his way to state prison on drug and weapons charges.

Tyler Catanese, 21, of the 300 block of West King Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 3½ to 10 years in a state correctional facility after he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to deliver controlled substances, including methamphetamine and fentanyl, and persons not to possess firearms in connection with a July 2017 incident in the borough.

The sentence was imposed by Judge William R. Carpenter, who accepted a plea agreement in the matter.

Court documents indicate that at about 3 p.m. July 13, 2017, borough police observed Catanese, for whom authorities were searching after he allegedly failed to return to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility while on a work release detail, operating a vehicle in the area of Beech and North York streets.

Police were able to stop Catanese’s vehicle when he pulled into a parking lot in the 100 block of Berks street, according to the arrest affidavit.

Catanese told police that there was a .45-caliber handgun under the driver’s seat and controlled substances in the vehicle. Police found a loaded black and silver handgun under the driver’s seat and it had seven rounds in the magazine and one round in the chamber, according to the arrest affidavit.

Authorities alleged Catanese has prior convictions that prohibit him from legally possessing a firearm.

Police alleged they found suspected methamphetamine inside the vehicle as well as a key to a room at the nearby Comfort Inn, according to court documents. When police searched the motel room, where Catanese reportedly had been staying with a woman, they found fentanyl, methamphetamine, a scale with white powdery residue, drug packaging materials and a box of .45-caliber ammunition, according to the criminal complaint.

During a subsequent interview, Catanese admitted that the firearm recovered from the vehicle belonged to him and that the white powdery substance recovered from the motel room “was known to him to be fentanyl,” according to the arrest affidavit.

A cellphone also was seized during the investigation and police found numerous drug-related text messages on the phone, police alleged. In one message a person asked Catanese for

“3 bunnies,” which police alleged is street slang for bundles of heroin or fentanyl.